


Polaroids

by MelodramaticMrTails, Moondeertribe



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Genderbending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 12:40:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1688696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelodramaticMrTails/pseuds/MelodramaticMrTails, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moondeertribe/pseuds/Moondeertribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's high school without falling in love, questioning your sexuality, making really bad decisions, immediately regretting those decisions, falling out love, falling back in love, and failing three of your classes? Now it can be done to a musical soundtrack!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cooler Than Me

**Author's Note:**

> Art by the many tiny dere found at moondeertribe.tumblr.com

“Just take a seat anywhere,” the teacher says.

You pick your head up a little to see what’s happening. Ah, there’s a new girl in your class, that’s right. Jude was telling you about it the other day, though you weren’t paying that much attention honestly. Jude tells you a lot of stuff he learns from his class president whatever thing. You don’t pay attention, okay. She’s from New York or Texas or something. Man, those places aren’t even relatively close together.

“And take the shades off,” the teacher adds on as she turns back to the chalkboard. There are many empty seats in your homeroom due to the lack of students this year, but she chooses the seat beside you. She drops her bag beside the desk and then settles into the chair without looking at you. Well, you don’t think she’s looking at you at least, since she has not yet removed her shades.

You don’t think she’s planning on doing so, either. She doesn’t say anything to you, instead grabbing a hold of her mass of hair and slinging it over her shoulder before leaning her elbow on the table and her head in her palm. She has a lot of hair, wow.

“I’m Joan,” you introduce yourself quietly, as to not draw the teachers attention again. Ms Droog is nice enough as long as you don’t push her and you don’t plan on doing that. The new girl doesn’t even acknowledge you. Rude. Alright. You wave a hand in front of her face curiously and she looks in your direction finally.

“I’m- Joan?” you try again. She gives you a small nod. You can see the three gold piercings that run along the bottom of her lip and the horseshoe shaped one dangling from her nose. That’s kind of cool, you guess.

“Dove,” she replies. “Sup.”

“You’re new here right?” you ask. You feel like you should say something since she obviously isn’t going to.

“Yeah,” comes the short response. Right. You turn away from her and she does the same. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Wow, you were just trying to be nice. After a few boring moments of watching Ms Droog write nonsense on the board, Dove goes to typing away on her phone under the shield of the desk.

“Whoa, is that the new model?” you question. You’re trying to be nice and strike up a conversation or something, but Dove only ignores you. “Isn’t that supposed to be really expensive?” Still no reply. Alright, so you’re done with this. She apparently thinks she’s better than you. Probably from New York.

Halfway through class, she speaks to you again, turning to you slightly to signify she wants your attention. Oh yeah, now she wants to talk to you.

“Yo, can I borrow a pen?” she asks. You want to tell her no, but that would be mean and you’re above that. You’re also a total wimp and you’re pretty sure she could take you in a fight. You reluctantly hand her a pen. “Thanks.”

You’re never getting that pen back.

You do watch what she does with it for a moment though as she immediately takes it and goes about writing in one of her notepads. You’d think she’d bring a pen with her if she brought paper. Actually, she did bring a pen with her. You notice this a few moments too late; there is a red pen stuck in her hair a few inches out of her search range. You decide she can keep the pen.

What you can understand of her chicken scratch handwriting is nonsensical at best. You decide to leave it that way. It's not like she would talk to you anyways. The rest of class is spent with you listening to her hard candy clanking against her teeth as if that isn’t annoying as hell. Fortunately, class is over sooner than later and you quickly head to the next.

Where she joins you mere minutes later. Oh great. You see where this is going. Jude probably added her to all your classes so she’d have a friend or something. He could have added her to all his classes. Granted, Jude takes exclusively AP classes. Still though. It’s not like she’s going to sit by you again, after all, you think as she proceeds to sit next to you again.

“Someone usually sits there,” you murmur pointedly. Dove watches you for a moment before glancing around the classroom where everyone is already seated and ready for class and more importantly, definitely not looking for Dove’s seat. The person who usually sits there, of course, is not sitting there. She has clearly abandoned you for other people. You stare pointedly at Karkit from across the room and receive a middle finger for your efforts.

“I don’t think she minds,” Dove says. You sigh under your breath.

“So,” you say nonchalantly. “What class do you have next?”

“Reading,” she answers. Yeah, you figured. You’re going to go ahead and guess she’s going to sit next to you there, too. It’s not like there aren’t any other people she can sit next to and ignore the whole time. She holds your pen out to you. “Here. Found mine.”

“Yeah, I bet,” you murmur back, taking it from her.

“What?” she says.

“Uh. You have a lot of hair,” you tell her. She doesn’t say anything. That was dumb of you. Not that she likes you anyways, so whatever. Dove turns away from you and you wonder what the hell made you say that anyways. She retrieves a roll of some weird candy from her sweater pocket, peels a bit of the wrapper away to pop another in her mouth and then offers the stick out to you. There’s some Korean writing on the side that you obviously can’t make out.

“No thanks,” you refuse. “I don’t like sweets.” She puts it back in her pocket and doesn’t offer you anything else. Like the previous class, she doesn’t talk to you and she doesn’t seem to be paying attention, either. This, of course, means when the teacher tells you to pair up with your table partner to fill out the worksheet passed around, you have to initiate the conversation. Again.

“Might as well get this over with,” you murmur distinctively at her. She has to be partially deaf because again, Dove doesn’t respond even remotely. You nudge her shoulder a little and she slowly looks at you through her ridiculously thick shades. “Are you listening?”

“Not really,” she answers. “Not at all actually.”

“We have to fill out this paper,” you suggest, shaking it for her a little. She looks down at it momentarily before nodding.

“Cool,” she says with no infliction.

“Together. We have to fill it out together,” you explain clearly. She gives you a placid look, though at this point, you’re not actually sure she has any other emotions.

“Yeah,” Dove promises. “I got that.”

“Well, most of it is stuff we learned last week, so you probably won’t know most of it,” you say, though this is mostly to yourself.

“Yeah,” Dove agrees. “We didn’t have Precalc where I’m from,” she says. This is sarcasm. You probably deserved that, to be honest. As if this would suddenly be different, she doesn’t talk to you much while the two of you work, either, only adding in a comment here or then when you do something wrong or has something to ask.

She just rubs you the wrong way, alright?

You leave class as soon as possible, even though you know she’s just going to show up and sit next to you again. Fortunately or not, this doesn’t happen. Dove doesn’t show up to English at all, actually, which you find weird but you’re not complaining either. Maybe she got lost or something? You don’t think too much on it and just enjoy your class. Or not enjoy it actually. You don’t hate school, but come on it’s not your favorite thing in the world.

Class comes and goes quickly and you’re more than happy to head to lunch to see Jude. He’s already seated at the usual table when you come outside with your lunch. He’s sitting with a boy you’ve never seen before, but you approach them all the same with a friendly smile.

“Hi Jude!”

“Oh Joan! This is Ross, the new student from New York,” Jude introduces. Oh man, you really weren’t listening apparently. Who was Dove, then? Ross holds a hand out for you to shake and wow he’s really cute actually. You shake his hand as you sit across from them at the little circular table.

“It’s nice to meet you, Joan,” he says softly.

“Ah. Same,” you answer.

“Ross was telling me about how he plays violin!” Jude tells you happily. “Joan plays piano. She is like really great, too.”

“I-” as you prepare to pull the modesty card because hell yeah you’re great at the piano, you’re immediately derailed by the sight of Dove coming out of the cafeteria. “Oh no. Don’t look, don’t look,” you say under your breath quickly, shielding your eyes with one hand. Jude and Ross both look. That’s what you just said not to do!

“Oh Dove,” Ross says. “I’m over here.”

Not. Surprised.

Dove sits beside you, putting her tray next to yours on the table and you think long and hard about your life choices.

“Sup Lalonde, Lalonde’s friend. Other girl,” she greets mildly. Right, because it wasn’t like you didn’t tell her your name earlier.

“I am Jude!” Jude introduces himself gladly. “That is Joan!” Yeah, your name is still Joan, that didn’t change in the last half hour.

“Right,” Dove says. “Math class.”

“And homeroom,” you assure her. She doesn’t seem to remember this. Oh yeah, she’s just too cool to remember you. She instead focuses on her tray of food. They both must be new students, then. Why couldn’t Jude stick you with the cute one, at least? Jude probably didn't know Dove would be so uptight, but you're not so sure sometimes

“Is this actually food?” Dove murmurs.

“It’s good! Try it!” Jude insists. Dove doesn’t do that. She pushes the tray away from her slightly before digging into her bag to retrieve one of what sounds like many bottles of apple juice and pops another hard candy in her mouth.

“How are you liking the school so far?” Jude asks your two new 'friends' between bites of his lunch. You eat it because anything is better than the cake you’ve undoubtedly been packed, but you think Jude really does like this stuff for some unimaginable reason. It’s not bad, really, but it’s a long, long, long shot from being good.

“It’s-” Ross says slowly. “Different,” he admits. “Than what I’m used to,” is the quick conflict avoiding add on.

“It’s tiny,” Dove shrugs slightly.

“Compared to your last school? I wonder why,” Ross answers. Dove scoffs slightly. “What was it? Something like four thousand kids?”

“Something like that,” she replies distantly, unscrewing the top of her apple drink with a loud, unsealing pop.

“Wow,” Jude whistles. “That is a lot of kids.” You’ll agree to that, at least. There’s four hundred kids at your school max, and you don’t even think it’s that many. More like three fifty. Not that, that excuses Dove blowing you off earlier. You're finding it hard to want to agree with anything she says.

“Still better than homeschooling,” Dove says. Ross gives a small nod of agreement. Dove combs her fingers through a bit of her hair and you catch her look at you for a moment from under her shades before she looks away again. It’s simple and probably meaningless, but it’s like someone wrapped you in saran wrap and pushed you down a dry waterslide. She pulls her headphones out from under her hair suddenly and her ipod from out of her sweater pocket, somehow neither of them getting tangled in the blonde mass.

“Man, the battery’s dead again,” she mumbles irritable.

“You’ve had it on all morning,” Ross tells her. Maybe she wasn’t ignoring you? You definitely didn’t see her headphones under all that hair. She really does have a ridiculous amount of hair. You think that's better at least.

“Whatever,” Dove scoffs. “I need a new one anyways.”

“Didn’t you get that one a couple months ago?” Ross points out. Dove shrugs. Nevermind. She’s an asshole. You don’t care. There goes the rest of your year. 


	2. There She Breathes

You have all your classes with Joan and you kind of wish you didn’t. You can already tell she doesn’t like you which is unfortunate because she’s hella cute. Like whoa. You have tried exceedingly hard not to say anything dumb and you don’t think you have succeeded even remotely so far. What few things you have said since you’ve been trying not to say anything have been incredibly dumb.

‘Can I borrow a pen?’ What the fuck was that? ‘We didn’t have precalc in Texas.’ ‘Other girl’.

You hate yourself so much right now. How to flirt with girls 101 right here. You should write a god damn book. You have the rest of the day to spend with her and now no reason not to talk to her thanks to your shitty third gen ipod. Why did you even buy this piece of shit, really? It’s not like you can’t afford a better one.

“Hey,” you call in Joan’s direction and watch as she hesitantly stops before realising that she’s stopped too long now and can not pretend she didn’t hear you. “Wait up.” She does this, not to your surprise. She’s actually really nice and you’re just really fucking dumb okay. When you catch up with her, she starts walking again and you walk with her.

“Let me guess,” Joan says.

“Guess,” you reply.

“Ceramics?” she asks.

“Yup,” you answer. She doesn’t seem thrilled about this. You didn’t think you were that bad but obviously you were incorrect. Granted, you doubt you can fix this but you’d like to try at least because come on, she’s really, really cute. The ceramics room is slightly warmer than it is outside, but not warm enough for you to take your sweater off. The shades don’t come off and the sweater doesn’t come off. It’s really cold here and you’d rather not freeze to death. It’s like sixty fucking degrees.

The tables here are not set up in pairs for once, and while you sit next to Joan again, two others sit across from you.

“Who’s the new girl, Joan?” one asks. He’s okay, but not Joan cute. Joan sets her bag down after retrieving her notes from it before looking to you and back to him again. You could introduce yourself, you guess, but you don’t.

“This is Dove,” she says. And you don’t because wow the way she says your name is really great.

“Dowe?” the girl with the purple streak asks. That, however, is not great. There is not a ‘w’ in your name. There is not a ‘w’ anywhere near your name. There isn’t even any sounds in your name close to sounding like a ‘w’. “That’s a pretty name.”

“Don’t touch me,” you deadpan immediately at the foot that comes near you under the table. The guy laughs.

“You can’t even hit it in the park with the new kid. Did you even grab a bat?” he snorts.

“I wwas just tryin' ta be nice!” she snaps at you. You have nothing to say to this.

“This is Vriksa and Eriden,” Joan tells you. You give them a single head nod.

“Sup,” you answer. Neither of them interest you a shocking amount. Your interest really is all in or nothing. Everyone in the room goes to work on their projects automatically and you are left without instruction. The teacher seems to realise this relatively quickly though.

“Joan,” she instructs from across the room. “Help the new student, please.” And this is why you continue to sit beside her; for all that sweet, sweet teacher wingman help.

“Okay,” Joan replies. She leaves the table for a moment and you watch her move across the room and back again to drop a block of clay in front of you. “So just sculpt something.”

“How would I ever have figured that out without you,” you murmur. You don’t mean it to be malicious, but you can see how it could be taken that way and immediately hate yourself for it. Joan probably takes it that way.

“As long as you don’t make a dick, she doesn’t really care,” Joan informs you with a simply shrug.

“Or if you make a really fucking great dick,” Vriksa adds on. You roll your sleeves up a little to start working with the lump. This is more difficult than you thought it would be, honestly. If you had a choice to pick your extra class, this probably wouldn’t have been it. However, you’re kind of glad you didn’t. On the other hand, you’re probably annoying the hell out of Joan.

“Did you see the new episode last night?” Vriksa asks and he seems to be speaking exclusively to Joan.

“Oh man, did I,” Joan replies with a bubbly smile. “Loiter Squad is the best.” They go off on whatever probably incredibly dumb show they’re talking about and you just sit by and listen. If it wasn’t obvious before, it’s obvious now how much Joan really doesn’t care for you. On a slightly more positive note, if that is a thing you can have, she is absolutely way cuter when she isn’t in a poor mood.

Or unamused by you. Whatever.

You know you just met her and you’re being really dumb but you also know that’s how you’ve always been and it’s not going to stop today. Not when she smiles like that. Not when she laughs like that. It’s not really fair to you, now is it? You focus on your lump of clay again, the lump still being a lump and not having taken form during the time you were focused on Joan. This is going to be a long class, you can tell already.

“So Dove,” Vriksa speaks to you now. You continue to have mild to no interest. “Why did you move here of all places?”

“The economical setting of sex toys in rural Texas and surrounding areas paired with the fact that my sister was legally recognized as a lower being on many levels and the rising price of gas and therefor shipping costs urged us to move here to boost our profits,” you answer plainly. The three of them stare at you with dumb gullibility. Anything sounds real when you say it with a straight face.

“Really?” Eriden asks curiously.

“No,” you say. “My Sis lost a bet with Ross’ dad.” Yeah, like there was any way you’d move to the cold state of Washington otherwise. Did you mention it was like sixty degrees outside.

“Wwait,” Eriden points at you slightly. “Are you the one that mowed into that sky rise dowwntowwn?”

“Yeah?” you confirm placidly. It’s great that everyone’s going to know where you live now.

“I heard your family bought out the wwhole buildin',” she says. That sounds about right, yeah. You don’t really pay any attention to your Sis’ finances or what she does with her money so you wouldn’t actually know, but that sounds like something she would do. For a while when you were growing up, your Sis worked hard to teach you the value of a dollar, and she did. After that, she gave you a credit card and told you to go wild. So basically what you learned is that the dollar is worthless and people are dumb as hell that will buy and pay for just about anything.

“You heard what you just said, right?” you question in response, making Eriden think about it. “Do I really need to answer that?”

“That was dumb as hell,” Vriksa agrees. Eriden scowls.

“Wwhatewa.”

The ringing bell prompts everyone off to the next class. You have made no progress on your lump and honestly you’re not expecting a wonderful grade unless irony works in play for you. Which it might, actually. Glancing over to Joan, however, proves that man you probably won’t be the only one. That is also a lump of clay not unlike your own lump of clay. Her lump of clay is somehow cuter than yours.

You follow Joan to gym class like a lost puppy. You are kind of lost, despite the incredibly tiny school, so it’s not like there’s anything else for you to do. That’s your excuse and you’re sticking to it. Like your old school, this one has a changing room. Unlike your old school, this one does not have private changing rooms. This is probably something you’re going to have to get used to. Today, however, you only have one set of clothes anyways.

It’s easy enough to find your locker because it is the one right beside Joan’s. She doesn’t look surprised. You’re also not surprised. Jude assured you that Joan would show you around and clearly he made sure of that. You shove your precious cargo into the tiny locker and tie your hair back to the best of your ability, or rather to the extent of your effort, before taking a seat on the tiny bench between the rows of lockers.

You proceed to creep on Joan with no shame. She likely notices to, shades aside, but she’s so cute and life is hard. Besides, she’s wearing the most adorable ghost printed panty bra combo that hell yeah needs to be seen. This makes you feel a little better about not having clothes to change into because you have boxers on and not a bra in sight. She looks to you.

“You’re not gonna change?” she questions pointedly. You attempt to stop staring and fail horribly.

“Nah.” You should probably invest in a bra or something.

“Are you gonna be okay with-?” Joan gestures to you slightly once she has redressed in her sweats and t-shirt. You pull idly at your sweater.

“Eh,” you answer. She acts as if you’re actually going to do something in this class. This is not going to happen. Still, you follow her out of the locker room instead of hiding in said room with your phone. You immediately regret this decision.

“Two laps!” the teachers says and everyone goes off running. Two laps? Two laps around what? You’re not making two laps around shit. This, obviously, gets you noticed. “Hey!” she shouts at you. “What’er you doin! Run!”

“No thanks,” you answer plainly. It’s not that you can’t do it, or that it’s difficult, you just don’t want to. You’re a world class runner, admittedly unable to compete because that sounds horrible.

“Son, if you don’t get your ass in gear!” she shouts at you as if that’s going to get you moving. You shift away from her slightly. She fumes and you decide maybe you should go ahead and get away from her. It’s your first day and perhaps it’s not the best idea to get on any of the teachers’ badsides yet. Reluctantly, you join the others on the track around the field, catching up with Joan easily.

“Someone is testy,” you murmur. Joan is already pretty out of breath, though to be fair everyone else is, too. Clearly these aren’t running people.

“Ms Boxcars is,” Joan says slowly. “Not a friendly person.” You figured that out, yeah. You turn around, running backward along side your new school buddy. At least the teacher seems less annoyed now. That’s someone you’ll need to stay on the good side of, obviously. Joan glances over at you curiously.

“I parkour on the weekends,” you shrug slightly, shoving your hands into your sweater pocket and turning yourself about again with elegant steps.

“That’s,” Joan says but she says nothing more. You’re hoping the rest of that sentence was supposed to be ‘cool’, but she seems intent on not telling you that. You’re the only one not out of breath, or sweating, at the end of two laps. Your Sis made you run way more than this over the years. This is nothing.

“You are more than you look,” a voice says and you glance toward her curiously. “Ah,” she adds on nervously, immediately sweating more. “I’m Equius,” she introduces herself. That’s a big woman right there.

“Dove,” you reply passively.

“You are the new student, correct?” she asks.

“Mm,” you confirm. Equius, for better or worse, is put off by you and offers you no more words. Friends aren’t really your thing, anyways. Not that you’re against friends, people just find you hard to be around. You talk a lot, after all.

And not enough.

“Did ya run?” Boxcars asks you loudly. She watched you run, what.

“Yes?” you assure her. She seems a bit confused but doesn’t offer you anymore problems. You and Joan pair up to stretch though this is probably more because she doesn’t want to pair up with anyone else in class. This is either a compliment or a fucking warning, fuck man. You hold her feet as she does sit ups, making sure to not look at you each time she comes up.

“What’s with the lame sunglasses, anyways?” she questions idly.

“Nothin,” you tell her plainly. If it was something you wanted to talk about, then you wouldn’t wear them, right? Let’s be honest, red eyes aren’t natural and you’re shade of red is even worse. The reactions you get vary but they’re all fucking horrible regardless. The sun hurts your eyes, anyways. Joan rolls her eyes. That’s fine, you guess. She’s cute, but you don’t actually need her approval. Not that it wouldn’t be nice.

“Okay, your turn,” she says, sitting up a little. You actually don’t need to stretch, you did so momentarily before lunch, but that would mean refusing Joan’s help and her touch. This probably appears creepier than you intended for it to be. You have to adjust your hair a little so you don’t sit on it and Joan grabs your ankles for you.

“What about you?” you ask. Joan peers at you curiously. You see your mistake immediately. Ready to crash and burn; start! “I’m guessing that knock off Ghostbusters shirt isn’t ironic,” you nod your head in the direction of the changing room slightly. Joan puffs her cheeks out.

“No,” she huffs. “It’s not.”

“Cool.”

Wrong answer. Joan lets go of you as soon as Ms Boxcars begins to speak again. If things were going well with Joan before, they’re going fucking amazing now. You don’t participate with whatever sport they’re probably incredibly bad at. Ms Boxcars separates the class into four teams and you are not on Joan’s team and you’re not playing against Joan’s team, so you do not care. You just stay out of the way and instead watch Joan’s team across the field.

She doesn’t seem to be very athletic, but she’s tiny and nimble, managing to get a hold of the ball and dodge without suffering much injury. Not that she gets very far with it. Joan doesn’t seem to notice you noticing her so that’s in your favor at least. Your team notices that you’re not paying attention even remotely, though.

“Dove,” Equius whispers.

“Hmm,” you reply to her again. This makes her even more nervous than it did before. She is obviously not a nervous kind of person.

“The others are not pleased with your participation,” she explains. You look to her mildly.

“What’s with you?” you ask pointedly.

“I-I’m sorry?” she questions back. You nod your head at the others on your team.

“You boss the others around and then walk over here and your spine crumples like a tin fucking can. What the fuck?” you clear up for her. Equius only becomes more unsure of herself. You were unaware a person could sweat this much. That’s weird as hell.

“You are Dove Strider, right?” she says. “The Striders control a large share of my mother’s company,” she admits. You don’t know anything about that even remotely. However, you’re not shockingly interested in it, either. If she’s going to treat you like you’re some kind of rich parent’s snobby kid, then she can go right on ahead. Nothing you say is going to change that.

You catch the ball that comes barreling at you with one hand automatically, stopping it in its tracks with no effort. Equius takes a surprised step back. The rest of your so called team is left stunned. You hand her the ball.

“I think this is meant for you,” you assure her. She takes it with shaking hands. The bell rings somewhere from the school building and you brush past her to leave the field. “And that’s the bell.”

You’ve just finished getting your stuff out your locker when Joan comes in. She peers at you curiously. She probably didn't see what happened on the field. That sucks. You were really cool for a couple minutes there.

“Yo, I’mma head home,” you tell her, thumbing another apple cider disk into your mouth. Joan seems surprised by this. This is only because she doesn’t know you that well.

“We still have two more classes?” she reminds you. At least she doesn’t loathe you. You mean, she could be happy you were leaving or something.

“Yeah. Send me the homework would you. TurntechGodhead. You know, so I can not do it,” you tell her, patting her shoulder as you pass by. “See ya tomorrow, Joan.”


End file.
